Sunday, July 12, 2009

Metamorphosis Alpha Memory

Timeshadow's most recent post on the next edition of Metamorphosis Alpha may leave a bad taste in my mouth, but it does bring to mind one of the fondest gaming memories I have since I left my hometown and moved here:

I was running the Fast Forward edition of the game, and we were playing the Robot phase. Our party consisted of an engineering robot, a general labor robot, and the third was some kind of overseer robot if I remember correctly. As the robots made their way through the mutated, irradiated jungle of Level 16, they came upon a utility shed. Having concocted a plan to get pesticide and load it into the artificial weather regulator, (so as to rain poison on the mutated and increasingly alien plant life) they began to venture toward it, hoping they could find some pesticide within. One of the robots detected some radiation about the place. The general labor robot, not fearing any radiation, boldly entered.

Priceless. Unfortunately, we never played MA again. That's too bad, because the players did end up pulling off their scheme, and the engineering robot managed to download the core of the AI that regulated the level, becoming sentient and free-willed. (Hey, if the radiation in MA works in wonky ways, I figured I could take some liberties with robots/computers) Oh, well.

I always was interested in the big hardback edition they put out afterward, but I could never justify the purchase based on the price vs. the game's initial reception with my gaming crew at the time. Well, maybe the price will come down now that they've got a new edition in the works.

...of course, I'm fairly sure you can download the first edition for free on some website somewhere. Still, I can't see any reason to run MA and not just use the rules for some edition of Gamma World or Mutant Future. I always sort of saw MA as a campaign setting for Gamma World. (Yes, yes, I know MA came first...this is just my odd and often finicky perception)